The Incurable Disease
by CatChewer
Summary: Before she died, Eliza wrote a diary entry describing her fear of Johann’s genetic heritage and how his naturally kind disposition makes him a perfect candidate for the Faust madness.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Shaman King.**

**A/N: I'm on a role! Here's a new Faust ficcy, and hopefully not as creepy as the last one.**

Today I decided to record an event of the strangest kind that happened to me last Thursday.

As many of my entries are about, this is yet another one about Johann. I feel almost an overwhelming need to protect him. He is so young and already has the heavy burden that comes with being a doctor. He seems to take every failure as a personal failing. I imagine that he thinks of every lost patient as if he had lost someone dear to himself. I always sense a heavy and asphyxiating sadness about him whenever there is this rare occurrence.

Anyway, to get back to the odd incident. He was as he usually is, when he isn't in the clinic, working in the cramped upstairs room (more like a storeroom than anything else), the one that we have both fondly started to call the "temporary library". We call it that because Johann has piles upon piles of medical books, journals and magazines in there, and he claims it always to be temporary. I keep telling him to use a room that actually has a window, so that he isn't in the dark all of the time, but he seems to like it there. I just wouldn't be able to stay in there too long myself; it's like a tomb.

I decided that Thursday, as I have decided many times, that he needed some time to relax, and prepared some tea in two of the tea cups from the set of six that I have. This set was dear to me and I did not use it often. My mother handed it down to me as a wedding gift. Johann hardly dares touch it, scared of breaking it. I find it odd, as he isn't a clumsy sort of person. He wouldn't make a very good doctor if that were the case.

I went up the stairs to the room, and as always, knocked before I entered. I could see that he was so engrossed in whatever he was doing that he had neither heard the knock nor me walk in. This is a usual occurrence and I find it very amusing. I joke to him about it all the time.

This time however, as I called his name, he spun around in his chair at an aggressive speed, and, (I swear it!) snarled. Like an animal.

His eyes seemed to radiate a feverish and acidic anger.

I was still holding the tray. I was so shocked that my hands lost their grip and the tray fell silently until it landed. There was a loud crash. An awkward silence followed. The loud sound seemed to have shaken him out of whatever state of mind he had been in. He looked up at me, turned red, and then looked at the mess on the floor. His eyes widened and he immediately started to stammer and apologize. He acted like a naughty child whose mother had discovered some deep and embarrassing secret.

He picked up the delicate porcelain pieces and cleaned the dust and particles left with a towel. I was still rather shocked and spent all this time watching him clean without realizing what he was doing. My mouth was most probably open the whole time. He was obviously consumed by guilt; not only for the tea set but also for the fright he gave me. He was almost on his knees asking for my forgiveness, telling me that he didn't mean it, that it would never happen again.

Johann was back to his usual sweet self, and I considered it all forgiven, and I told him so.

And yet I felt the need to ponder on this for the next days. This behaviour puzzled me, and to the casual observer they might suggest that I am overreacting. Everyone has their bad days. But that was the point. I had never seen Johann have a bad day and showing it. At least not like anyone I knew. Unlike a normal child he did not cry when his father died, at least that was what his mother told me. He didn't _seem_ the least bit affected, but I was also told that he grew very quiet and spent many hours looking through his father's vast collection of medical and anatomy books. They are now mostly out of date, but Johann will not throw out even one.

Johann is the kindest of the kindest, but I fear that he has a great deal of resentment and anger inside. This was the first time I ever saw any of it. Perhaps it shows that he isn't superhuman. But what kind of human being is unable to express anything but kindliness? Even towards his very own wife. I know that a doctor must be able to keep his emotions separated from his work, but I am not one of his patients!

I don't know what it is that drives him to stay in the temporary library to the point of complete exhaustion every day. It is like a cage he has set up for himself. What is he searching for? When I ask him, he simply tells me that to be a good doctor he must be able to recognize symptoms of all kinds. He tells me that new discoveries in the medicinal world are being made all of the time. A misdiagnosis could cost someone their life.

I am now, for the first time since I first met him, questioning who he is. I knew before I married him that madness was in the Faust family line. His father had mercifully died of tuberculosis before any of it set in. I believe that even his grandfather suffered an early death.

But I fear the worst for Johann. I fear he will be trapped inside himself. His devotion to his patients, his devotion to me, seems endless. How can he keep himself going at this crazy rate for much longer?

Fate is a funny thing, and I think this delicate balance that Johann has created for himself in his world would be very easily shattered. What is it he's afraid to lose? What is he defending himself against?

I kept that old china set, now only a set for four. I somehow felt that it was something I should keep. I keep it at the back of the closet, as I keep the itching thought of Johann's hitherto silent and dark personality in the back of my mind. Johann promised me he would get me a new tea set for Christmas.

I know that only Johann can overcome his own mind. Johann Faust is an extraordinary doctor, able to cure seemingly incurable diseases. Whatever darkness is taking seed in his mind, if Johann doesn't stop himself before it's too late not even he will be able to stop his own incurable disease, the heritage Faust madness.

**A/N: Woaw! Totally crazy ending. Remind you of episode 49? With the little twist at the end? CRAZY! Seems Shaman King is sprinkled with incurable diseases for Faust to cure. Not that I'm complaining. Please review? Please?**


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